So why not defend Jamarcus Russell then. Like all NFL players I'm sure he had injuries, too. How's about just a little accountability. He was healthy enough to play. He is what his QBR says it is. Rock bottom for 4 seasons.
Jamarcus never had any success, Mark did. I don't use the injury excuse, he played and he's evaluated on how he played. he had one bad year, if he was fully healthy w/ that talent he still would have struggled.
The Jets ran all over Cincy in the Wildcard game. Freeman has almost 200 yards. Todd was a warrior against Oakland. Under today's rules, Oakland would have had 3 or 4 Roughing The Passer penalties and another 3 or 4 Unsportsmanlike Conduct penalties. Alzado flung his helmet at Chris Ward and took a swing at Joe Fields.
LoL, your actually doing a great job of making my case for me Junc, you're so caught up in proving Todd was a worse QB than Sanchez, a fact I've already explicitly stated.....all you are doing is proving a bad QB can get to the afc championship and reinforcing that statement. Good Job!!! Keep it UP!!!
Just one more thing. Many players have surgery in the off season. And they play through their injuries like Mark did.
The guy never worked. He was the last one to practice and the first one to leave. The Oakland coaching staff gave him a DVD with scripted plays. They told him to watch it over the next 2 days during bye week time. Jamarcus comes back a few days later and gives them back the DVD...they ask him if it was useful and he says yeah he picked up a few things. The DVD was blank.
Todd had better Offensive weapons and a MUCH better O-Line. The Jets O-Line was solid 1-5. Good/Great WR's....good/Very good TE's......good RB after McNeil came on board. Different era, though, even with the 1978 rule changes.
A shoulder injury was not why he threw the ball late; that was just Mark making bad decisions/plays. If anything it should have forced him to throw a bit earlier to account for the injury. But the soft and wobbly throws were definitely noticeable. Shoulder injury, lack of confidence, "regression" whatever you want to call it, it was definitely clear he lost the velocity in his throws.
Pretty much, Todd was the epitomy of a bad QB reaching the playoffs in back to back years riding a good team to the playoffs. Of course in the playoffs as you get deeper and deeper in to the playoffs the teams become better and better and sooner or later you're exposed....it's rare for a poorly QB'd team to reach the superbowl, it happens (Dilfer) but it's rare.
I think Mark is a better-than-average QB. I think one of these years he is going to have His Year just like Foles did last year and Testaverde did with us. That will NOT be something he replicates 3 or 4 times, but I think Mark is either a quality backup (like Jeff Garcia)/borderline starter for even a good team. He'll be in the league 10-12 years, maybe longer if he wants. JaMarcus was out after 3.
Todd threw the strike to Wesley Walker that won the game...a 45-yarder as I recall. He got POUNDED into the turf and blasted by 2 Raiders on the play. Pat Ryan on the sideline was quoted by Steve Serby the next day as saying he thought Todd would have to be carried out on a stretcher.
And no WR's.....the point is, a QB who has a rising QB rating his first 3 years and then drops 10 points in Year 4 -- something is wrong. I don't think Mark just had 'a bad year.' I think he was injured, I think the talent was atrocious, and I think Tony Sparano was one of the worst coaching hires made since Lou Holtz or at least Bruce Coslet.
Oh hurt or not he had a bad year, and that's putting it nicely. Steve Young said it best about Sanchez in 2012, rather than help stop or slow the bleeding, "he accelerated the down". Injured or not, your QB can't do that.
Todd was also an turnover machine, even in his era. I would argue about the better receivers, his best weapon was Walker who caught 47 passes and his top receiver caught 52, Harper..his other WR was Lam Jones (widely discussed in the most thread for favorite worst jet players) and his tight end was Barkum, who by 1981 was in the twilight of his career and hadn't caught as many as 40 passes in 7 years (in fact he hadn't even caught 30 passes in 6 years prior to the 1981 season). McNeil, while good when he was on the field, only had 137 carries in 6 starts (11 games) as a rookie and only rushed for 623 yards and 2 TD's, but the running game was a strength.. So where do you get Great WR's and very good TE's from? He had one deep threat one eyed receiver who while he was a big player maker also dropped a lot of passes (I loved walker btw, very exciting player), Lam Jones, who is widely considered one of the most beloved bad players in Jets history. and Jerome Barkum who was 2 years away from retirement and hadn't caught even 30 passes in 6 years? The strength of the 81 Jets wasn't their offense, it was their defense, just like in 09 and '10, though not as dominating as the '09 teams defense. they ranked #8 in the league in points allowed the 11th lowest completion percentage, and they led the league in sacks, by a large margin. That team, just like the 09 and 10 jets rode the defense in to the playoffs and in to the championship game. That game was a mess btw, raining, muddy, both teams were turning the ball over left and right, Todd had 5 picks and the dolphins had 4 picks....probably one of the worst played AFC championship games by both teams of all time.
again, when did he get back? you can make a little run, you aren't winning consistently. Todd's Jets had one full season winning record. never won postseason game in multiple seasons. and Todd wasn't awful, he actually had a couple of good seasons but melted in the 2 playoff losses throwing 9 INTs in the 2 losses while Sanchez threw 1 INT in 2 losses. Sanchez gave his team a chance to win those games, Todd did not.
The O's in '81 and '82 were good and he had as much talent on those teams as Mark had on his except he didn't have a NE dynasty to deal with.
I always loved Walker, it was amazing what he could do given he didn't have depth perception and when he did catch the ball he was magic. His 19 yards per catch average over his career ranks #12 of all time, that's no slouch accomplishment.
He got back to the playoffs the next year. I watched Todd, he was god awful, he could make all the throws but he threw so many picks and his accuracy was crap. He melted in the playoff games? He was just himself in the playoffs. Granted in 81 he only had 13 picks, (for him an exceptional season) but the year before he had thrown 30. The mans career interception percentage was 5.4%, or 1 pass in 20. and all but 2 of his years, and all but one of his years starting were AFTER the rules changes that opened up the passing game. I loved Todd, he's still my 3rd favorite Jets QB, he was trash, but I loved him.
